sovay: (Mr Palfrey: a prissy bastard)
sovay ([personal profile] sovay) wrote2026-04-05 05:22 am
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Ain't nobody write me like you read me before

I freely admit that I ground my way through the protracted heteronormative anxieties of Strange Lady in Town (1955) for the continued presence of twenty-three-year-old Lois Smith as Spurs O'Brien, one of those mixed-up motherless tomboys who just needs her gender trouble sorted out by her father's remarriage to a strong feminine role model if you believe the screenplay and looks such a late nineteenth century baby dyke in her ranch jacket and jingling boots that you feel she's just waiting for motorcycle clubs to be invented. Her crush on a cavalry lieutenant is narratively doomed and might in any case have been envy. Put her in a ball gown, she's right back in trousers and string ties the next scene, heedless and gallant as any young grandee. I mean when Dana Andrews drags his heels on the sub-screwball romance through which the picture manifests its stresses over the place of professional women, Spurs does her best to run off with Greer Garson herself, all the way back to Boston. "I don't know, Doc, except—well, except I can't figure out any sort of life without you." What did the film think it was doing with her? I don't even know what it thought it was doing with the slap-kiss of its textual couple, but I took an awful screencap just because of the lingering way Spurs sees herself out of a room with Garson's Dr. Julia Garth in it. Once she gets over the rebound, she'll make some Eastern belle ring. "But what a woman!"

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theseatheseatheopensea: Annabelle Hurst from Department S holding a book. (Annabelle.)

[personal profile] theseatheseatheopensea 2026-04-05 05:10 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I have to watch this one! I really liked Lois Smith in Five Easy Pieces, and I'm always here for western tomboys! <3
sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)

[personal profile] sovay 2026-04-05 05:58 pm (UTC)(link)
Oh, I have to watch this one! I really liked Lois Smith in Five Easy Pieces, and I'm always here for western tomboys!

It is not a good movie, but honestly she's amazing. "Don't argue," she orders her father, "just get on your horse and get busy, because I'm warning you, if she leaves town, then I'm leaving with her!" And then she's as good as her word.
theseatheseatheopensea: A person reading, with a cat on their lap. (Reader and cat.)

[personal profile] theseatheseatheopensea 2026-04-05 07:00 pm (UTC)(link)
It sounds like the kind of movie that needs a queer canon divergence to fix it!
regshoe: Black and white illustration of a young woman in Victorian dress, jauntily tipping her wide-brimmed hat (Gladys)

[personal profile] regshoe 2026-04-05 06:32 pm (UTC)(link)
That may be an awful screencap, but I think it successfully conveys something of the character's appeal, at least :D (And yet it's the much more conventionally-feminine looking woman on the right who's a doctor? This film sounds interesting, if not good)
aurumcalendula: gold, blue, orange, and purple shapes on a black background (Default)

[personal profile] aurumcalendula 2026-04-05 06:54 pm (UTC)(link)
Spurs sounds cool! (I'm tempted to watch the movie to see if could make a femslashy vid out of it)
sovay: (Sovay: David Owen)

[personal profile] sovay 2026-04-05 07:23 pm (UTC)(link)
Spurs sounds cool! (I'm tempted to watch the movie to see if could make a femslashy vid out of it)

I think it would be the best thing possible for the movie if you did.
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